You seem to be hyper focused on this learning and growing thing. Is the point of photography the process? Or the end result? Because nobody pays you for the process.
Automatic transmissions are faster and more efficient that manual ones. I prefer driving manuals, but at the end of the day, the goal is to reach my destination. Its fine to embrace the process, but everybody is different in what that process should be. I have shot AP my whole life. I would hope that people would judge my results rather than my process.